3rd War Series Episode 3: Pity Party
by Lady Starscream
Summary: continuation of Transformations pt2. The team tries to get acclimated, and the Decepticons create a supergun with hillarious results. Soundwave won't shut up, Starscream bawls like a sparklet, and Thundercracker is dancing the funky chicken. wait, What?
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: This is what I've gotten written so far for National Novel Writing Month 2011 . It's kind of a continuation of "Transformations", part 2. It might be best to read the last couple chapters of that one. It has the stuff about what happened with Wyldkat and the Autobots.

x

Needle sighed and rapped his fingers on the table in front of him. He was bored. So very very bored. He glanced at the door again, wondering just how long it would take for Backdraft to finish his stupid report and the others could figure out a way to get home. He thought about his family, and how they were probably wondering where he was right now. He sighed again and wondered if maybe Scythe would let him go for a drive, if nothing else than to relieve some of his boredom.

About that time, Dusk walked in, holding two yellowish glowing cubes. She held one out to him. "Here. Scythe said you should refuel." He looked at it, slowly taking it. "What is it?" he turned the cube this way and that, making the energon inside of it swish around. "It's called an energon cube." Dusk pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. "It is concentrated energy, what we cybertronians consume for fuel. go on, try it." she nodded encouragingly and took a sip of her own. The green and blue pickup slowly followed suit, his optics never leaving dusk as she sipped her own cube. He hoped the cube was what she said it was.

He tasted the energon and his optics widened slightly behind his sunglasses-shaped optic covering. "Hmm." was all hesaid. He took a second sip. "It tastes kinda like Sprite." he noted, taking a look at the glowing yellow liquid. Dusk tilted her head. "Sprite?" Needle glanced at her. "Oh, sorry. It's a kind of soda pop. something humans drink. It's like a..." he thought for a second. "A fizzy fruit-flavored drink." He took a few more sips, then downed the rest of the cube. "Thanks."

Dusk nodded. There was an odd silence, then Needle set down the cube. "So... how does that work?" he nudged the now-empty cube. Dusk shrugged. "It's just a simple forcefield." she poked it and the cube dispersed. Needle rocked back in his chair. "Wow. cool." Dusk simply chuckled. "It's one of the more simple Cybertronian technologies." she looked at him. "Scythe tells me that you are a mechanic?" Needle nodded. "Well, mechanic in training. I was taking classes at the JVS..." he trailed off, wondering if she knew what that was. "It's a school that teaches specific skills, kind of like a college."

she nodded. "I see." He continued. "I was taking classes on auto-mechanics, repairing cars and stuff. But I'm not any kind of expert or anything." He didn't feel the need to say "yet" because that would be bragging. Dusk was obviously interested in the subject, it seemed. He was ready to tell her more about what he had learned when she stood, dispersing her own cube. "Would you like to learn more about our Cybertronian technology?"

"Wha-yeah, I mean-yeah, sure!" Needle stumbled over his words but nodded. He grinned widely. This was going to be so cool! he could learn about alien technology!"

He followed her out of the shop, and on towards where Dusk and Razor had their workshop.

When the door swished open, Razer barely glanced up. "what do you want?" he said from his position hunched over a mass of wire and circuits. "Now, Razer, let's not be unwelcoming to this insquisitive young mech. He wants to learn more about our technology." Dusk chided gently. Razer simply "hmmpf"ed at her, and continued his work.

"Needle here is studying to become a mechanic. Perhaps if we taught him enough he could become some sort of team medic." at which point Razer gave her a glance.

"Or, at the least help you out with your work here in the workshop."

"Ha ha." Razer deapanned, making dusk fold her arms.

After a moment of having his mate stare at the back of his head, Razer finally caved. He made a sound suspiciously like a sigh. "Fine, let him play with this." he grabbed a small box by it's edge and pulled it over. He stopped soldiering for a moment to pick it up and twist slightly in his seat, far enough to hold it out to him. "Here, you can play with this. I haven't gotten it to work yet."

he glanced at Dusk and deleted what he would have said. (I doubt you can mess it up any more than it allready is). and instead said "Maybe you can do something with it.

Needle grinned. "Thanks." he took the box and started looking through it's contents. Razer made a noise and went back to his work. Needle looked around the workshop for a place to "set up shop", but dusk grabbed him by the arm. "Let's go find someplace quiet to work." she gave Razer another glance before leading him out of the workshop and back towards the main cavern.

When they reached the main hall, dusk guided him back towards the room they had been in before. Apparently, the two had been using it for a commisary of sorts. Or at least a place to sit and refuel and be away from... well, he didn't know what. but anyway, the two sat down at the table, and Needle started taking out parts. "Uh, what is it?" he asked, looking up at her. Dusk looked at the bundle of wire and two circuitboards hanging from his hand, and quireked one optic ridge. "I think it's supposed to be some kind of flying camera device, but I'm not sure." she reached out for the part Needle was holding and he handed it to her.

she was tring to figure out what side went up when she heard Needle laugh. She looked up. The mech was holding the outer shell, which was silver and had two large and buglike eyes on the "head" which was attached by two thin wires. "I think it's a bug of some kind." he laughed when he realised his own joke. "Get it? it's a bug!"

Dusk blinked her optics off and on, then ran a quick search. "Oh, yeah. I think I understand." she gave a weak-sounding laugh. Needle set that part down and fished out the rest of the parts, laying them out on the table.

x

Jade sighed and wondered if she could go get a datapad from Dusk and get the flier femme to show her how to use it, so she could start keeping track of things. A journal of sorts. The muave and blue seekerfemme rolled off her berth and headed to the main cavern. There, she found Scythe in front of the main computer, watching the screen as the outside cameras panned across the empty landscape. He glanced at her as she entered. "Jade, hello." he nodded. "Hi scythe. You seen Dusk around anywhere?"

"No." came the short answer.

Jade quirked an optic ridge. "Is something wrong?" she could tell sometimes when the mech was upset about something. They'd known each other since she was about 16, (which had only been three years ago). Scythe turned off the monitors and regaurded her with a worried look. Deciding not to be blunt, he asked "How well do you know Wyldkat?"

Jade sputtered a bit. "Wy-Wyldkat? uhmm..." she thought for a second. "Well, I dunno. I mean, she's kind of my car. I've been driving her for over a year now. I think I know her pretty well, why?"

Scythe's tone was soft, almost cold, and somewhat regretful. "Wyldkat is a traitor."

"WHAT!?" Jade's optics went round. Scythe held up a hand. "Before you say anything, let me show this to you." he brought up the recording. Jade's optics widened, and her jaw dropped when she saw what appeared to be the Autobot leader caress the side of her face. "What the heck?" she breathed. Scythe shuffled his wings and Jade glanced at him. He turned to regaurd her. "You knew nothing about this?" "Whuh-no!" Jade glared at the still image on the screen. "I have no idea what this IS." she grated. Scythe nodded. I have spoken with her about it allready." he glanced at her. "she was evasive and vague when I asked her what she was doing."

Jade sighed. She knew the carfemme would get in trouble if she did something like this. Though there was a part of her that wanted to pull out pom-poms and cheer on the blue Plymouth Reliant for being on the Autobots's side. Scythe spoke again "I thought you show know, I may persue disciplinary actions for this. Jade looked at him. His dragon-wings shuffled again. "What kind of actions?" she asked.

Scythe hadn't thought about that. Right now, the dragon-mech was still trying to figure out what was going on. But if what Razer and Dusk had said was true, the Autobots were not as much of the honorable heroes they made themselves out to be. He thought for a moment before he finally said. "I don't know. I may have to ask her to leave our team." Jade simply nodded. "It depends on the severity of this... infraction."

Jade "Hmm"ed and looked at the screen. "You know," she tilted her head "Come to think of it, we could use this."

"Oh?" Scythe gave her a questioning look. Jade continued. "I mean, if Kat's so friendly with the Autobots, we could use her to get information. She could sneak around the Autobot base for us and stuff.

Scythe simply nodded. "Yes, but how will we know she isn't giving the Autobots information on us as well?"

"Hmm. you have a point." Jade folded her arms and tried to think of *something* helpful. After a minute of looking at the images on the screen, she motioned to it. "I mean, how does she *know* him, anyway?" she sighed and shook her head. "Seriously." the unspoken "And I thought winstriker was the drooly Optimus Prime fangirl." went unspoken, though. They didn't need another person in their little group coming under suspicion.

there was a minute of silence, and Scythe finally said "I will have to think about what to do about this." He and Jade glanced at each other and the femme nodded. "Yeah." She stood up. ""Uhm, just... don't go too hard on her, kay? maybe we could, I don't know, put a bug on her somehow, monitor her actions or something." Scythe nodded. "do you have anything like that?"

x

"No, but maybe Razer or Dusk might." Jade shrugged back. Scythe nodded. "I will consult with them." Jade suddenly realised the folly of that. If Scythe told the duo about Wyldkat, they could scrap her for takling... erm, yeah, with the Autobots. "Maybe, without telling them about the Autobots?" Jade tried weakly, motioning to the screen. "I mean, Razer and Dusk really hate the Autobots. They could try to scrap her or something, and i really don't want my fiance' to wonder what happened to his car."

"His car has allready dissapeared, however. Do you suppose he won't notice that?"

jade gave him a sharp look. "I don't know. But he'll be getting it back someday." she said in an annoyed tone. Scythe looked away. Then looked back at her. Some days, Jade thought, he really annoyed her. He might be their leader, but was also her friend, and as much as he could be smart and all leadery and stuff like that, he really ticked her off sometimes. He seemed to pick up on it, though. "I'll try to keep it out of the conversation." she gave him a glare for good measure. "Don't worry." he sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. "If you care about her that much, I'll make sure nothing happens to your car." Jade nodded. "Thanks Scythe." she put a hand over his and then pulled away. "Speaking of the fliers, have you seen them? I was gonna ask Dusk for a datapad so I can start keeping a journal."

"No, I have not. I don't know where they could be." Scythe turned off the computer screen. "That's okay, I'm sure they're around here somewhere." Jade headed for the door. "See ya later." Scythe simply nodded silently as Jade walked out.

The jet wondered why Wyldkat was hanging out with the Autobots. And what the heck had that video been about!? she wondered just how it had happenned, and the bigger question being wyldkat and the Autobot leader haveing a PDA moment!? SERIOUSLY!? just... WTFBBQ! She shook her head. She was going to get to the bottom of this. To heck with finding Dusk. She needed to find Wyldkat, and NOW.

x

Wyldkat had just walked into the main cavern when she stopped to listen to the strange buzzing sound behind her head. And it was coming straight at her. She turned and ducked with a suprised growl (which sounded quite catlike, ironically), narrowly missing being smacked in the face by the small flying buglike (?!) device.

The blue carfemme watched the small bug whiz across the room, do several loop-de-loops and barrels rolls, the swing back to fly staright at her again. But instead of even making it partway, it suddenly stopped dead in it's flight to hover a moment, threw sparks, then fell straight down. The door swished open and Needle ran in, followed closely by Gobee. "D'Awww!" Needle practically whined. "I thought it would work this time.

"Hm. so much for your mechanic's skills." Gobee teased from behind him. But the look Needle gave him made the small car regret it and mutter "sorry."

Needle walked over and picked it up, looking over it. "What is it?" Wyldkat came over. Needle sighed. Well, it's supposed to be a flying spy-device."

"It's a bug." Gobee snickered. "Yeah." Needle agreed, rolling it over so it's stringy wirelike legs were in the air. "But I haven't been able to get the flight controls exactly right. It keeps shorting out." he pulled out a screwdriver and started to unscrew the access panel on the underside of the thing. Wyldkat simply "hmm." ed and watched.

About that time, Dusk walked in. Needle took the little device over to her. "What happened?" she asked. 'I don't kow. It just short-circuited again." Needle replied. the two walked over to a nearby table, and Wyldkat shook her head as she walked out.

x

About an hour later, Scythe was yet-again scanning over the monitor screens. He lifted an optic ridge in question as a soft buzzing sounded from behind his head. He whirled to find empty air. He thought for a second and turned back to the monitor screen. But instead of looking at it, he was really looking at it's reflection. And the miniature fly hovering back and forth behind his head. He whipped around slapping his hand out flat, hitting the fly with the open pam of his hand, sending it careening across the room. "Hey!" sounded from the next room. The door slid open and Bullet was standing there. Scythe ruffled his wings and glowered, trying to look like he hadn't just been caught off gaurd by the spy device. "Bullet." he greeted. Bullet just looked up and waved weakly. With the other arm he elbowed Needle who was behind him for triggering the door to open. Needle simply made a slightly indignated sound. Bullet walked in.

Sythe recovered from his near-startled-ness and walked over. Needle went to retrieve the mechanical bug-fly-whatever you'd call it, and Bullet apologised. "We thought we could connect it to my laptop computer and boost the radius, but we still had to use the controller. We weren't trying to spy on you or anything." he explained, handing the green mech the remote. It looked kind of like playstation controller, but a little bit more complicated. Scythe looked it over and nodded. "This very interesting." he handed it back to his friend and smiled slightly. "This is good work. Really good."

Scythe suddenly realised a lot of their problems were about to be solved. If Bullet and Needle could get the thing working again. "Is that the.." he looked at the device in Needle's hands. He pointed. "The fly-cam?" both nodded. Scythe's smile widened slightly. Do you think you can get it working again?" he asked. Needle shrugged "We should be able to. I don't think it was damaged that much." Bullet nodded, too. Scythe nodded to the two of them "Excellent. Let me know when you have it working again. I would like to see how this thing works."

The two grinned and walked out to repair their little "toy".

x

Megatron circled his newest "superweapon". Starscream guessed it was some kind of wierd ragun, from the looks of it. He though it was a rediculous idea. Some funnel-shaped thingamabob with a crystal, some curcuitry, and well, he was almost positive it would blow up the instand the power was turned on. Just like that Autobot Scientist's gadgets, what was his name? wheel-well, or something like that.

"And with this, we shall conquer the Autobots, and rule the universe!" Megatron proclaimed. Starscream rolled his optics and pretended to mimic the gunmetal grey Decepticon. "Or turn ourselves into walkiing toaster ovens." he muttered under his breath. He got a glare from Soundwave, so he just folded his arms and glared back like "What, I can doo that too!"

Every time Megatron had an oh-so-illustrious plan, he would find at least three holes in it. But did their oh-so-mighty leader ever listen to him? oh no. Besides the fact that the giant raygun used experimental power cells stolen from the humans, that anything could go wrong with, Starscream knew something would happen. He wasn't sure just what that would be yet, though.

Megatron reached for the power switch, and starscream started backing away. "Starscream." Megatron's red gaze landed on him. "Stand your ground like a Decepticon warrior." Starscream bit back what he desperately wanted to say, but... oh the heck with it. "You can stand your decepticon ground and become Deceptifritter for all I care, I'm not getting turned into cosmic dust." he snarked, and backed up more. Megatron sighed, _actually sighed_ at him. When was Starscream going to learn that not everything he did would fail? He didn't feel like arguing with his cowardly air commander right now, though. Starscream would see. Once the Autobots were all destroyed, he'd be the first to turn around a proclaim for all to hear that Megatron was the mighty and powerful leader of the Decepticons, blah blah blah.

But, just in case, Megatron decided to check and make sure everything was right. At least then he could blame the Constructicons if something went wrong. Not that he wouldn't blame them anyway is anything happened.

Meanwhile, not too far away, maybe a hundred meters or so, The black and white shadow crept away from the shadow stealthily. "Lessee ya use yer 'lil zappy-gun, now." the saboteur grinned. One crossed wire between the power cells and the main command unit, should work, but if it didn't, he had a remote detonator to the explosive located under it.

Megatron grinned. "Is the gun ready?" "Powering up, Megatron." the Constructicon at the control replied. From the background, Starscream cringed in anticipation. "It is charged and ready!" another spoke a moment later.

"Then what are we waiting for!? FIRE!"

A bright red beam of energy lanced out from somewhere in the machine, passing throught the focusing crystal. The whine built up to audio rattling levels, then promptly died in a shower of sparks. "What!? What happened!" Megatron demanded.

In the shadows, the Autobot watching exclaimed softly "Yess!" and transformed to carmode, leaving before he could be discovered.

Starscream snickered and walked up from where he was hiding. "See? I told you it wouldn't work. It was all..." his barbs died as soon as the whine came back. Starscream barely got out an "ohslag" as Megatron started to say "What..." and it exploded.

Down the road, the black and white Porsche turned up his radio, humming along gleefully, knowing he'd done his job right, once again. "I love it when a plan comes together." he snickered.

Starscream coughed. Suprisingly, he hadn't ran away the instant the thing quit working. He'd actually stayed put where he'd been standing not too far away. Honestly, if it had exploded then, it still would have gotten him. He realised he should have just flown back to the Nemesis, but he didn't. Whether it was because Megatron would blame the failure on him and think he had done something to it then leave wasn't actually why, but it didn't matter, now.

"I told you it wouldn't work." Starscream. pointed out. "Shut UP! Starscream!" Megatron bellowed. "SHUT UP!"

Starscream pouted. Then sat down abruptly. "There's no need to yell." he sniffled. "I was just trying to say." Much to everyone's suprise, including Megatron's, Starscream began to cry. Megatron blinked, but reminded himself that maybe it was just stress. Nonetheless, he'd have the seeker's neuro-circuitry checked out the instant they got back to base.

"Soundwave report." Megatron barked. "Well..." Soundwave began, an unusual way to start a sentence for him, but nonetheless, Megatron waited.

"I'm sorry to report that your plan was a complete and total failure, even if it only did have 88.9599 percent chance of working to begin with, but the good news is that we can still rebuild. And I'll personally oversee it myself. That is, if you want me to, and maybe have the constructicons help. But, of course, that's up to you, I mean, since you are the commander, and you are in charge of the entire Decepticon faction and I..."

Megatron held up his hand for his second in command to stop. What was *with* him? he had never heard Soundwave say so much in his entire life. Nevertheless use conjunctions such as I'm, You're and other such things.

"Just..." Megatron sighed. He pinched the bridge of his olfactory projection. He swore he could feel a processor-ache coming on. "Fix it."

"Yes sir, right away, sir. So you want the constructicons to help? because if they don't help, I'm not sure how long it's going to take to repair this thing, and..." Megatron glowled audibly. "YES!" he snapped "Just... FIX IT! Arrgh!" He stomped away, pretty sure now that the universe in it's entirety was out to get him.

Meanwhile, from the flycam atop the tree, the Kintaari watched the scene play out over the viewscreen of Bullet's laptop. The Megatron-mimic had laughed himself silly, along with the others about this. "I can't wait to see how the others react that got hit! HeeHeeHeeHaHaHa!" Jade laughed from behind him. Bullet grinned and the flycam he was controlling followed the Decepticon leader as he left the work area...

x

When the Decepticons returned to the Nemesis, everything seemed normal. Well, relatively normal. Starscream was *still* sniffling. Skywarp was just looking around normally, and for some odd reason, Thundercracker had taken to giggling incessantly. Megatron touched down on the landing pad, looking forward to getting to his quarters and locking himself in. Sometimes he wondered why his warriors sometimes acted like complete idiots. He sighed, wondering if Optimus Prime ever had this problem. He just shook any thoughts out of his head and headed for his quarters.

Behind him he could hear Skywarp oogling over something shiny he had found in the work area after the explosion. He just told himself it wasn't important, and tried to repeat that to himself (and over and over again) to drown out the sound of Skywarp proclaiming how "pretty the shiny thingy is".

Thundercracker looked it. "Hey, isn't that the..." he reached for the part, and Skywarp snatched his hand away to hide the miniscule peice of metal with a snarl. "Mine!" he snapped.

"Ooo-kay." Thundercracker blinked his optics off then on. "I just wanted to see it. Skywarp backed off, protecting the tiny bit of metal. "It's mine, you can't have it!" Megatron didn't stop. Whatever it was, they could scrap each other till Cybertron fell out of it's orbit, for all he cared. He hurried down the hall away from the noises.

Meanwhile, in the main control room, skywarp had aimed his arm-gun at his trine-mate. "Woah, calm down warp. It's fine. I don't want your little..." Thundercracker started giggling. It was so totally ubsurd, it was just funny. "I mean, really, warp. It's fine." He started laughing harder.

Suddenly, Thundercracker realised everything was funny. He was Rumble and Frenzy walk in, the two perfectly in step with each other. The blue jet pointed and laughed even harder. "What're you laughing at, airhead." Frenzy glowered.

"Nothing, I just..."

Rumble glanced at his twin.

"YOU TWO LOOK LIKE OOMPALOOMPAS!" the blue jet blurted out, then clapped both hands over his mouth. Realising he was about to be pounded by the duo, he turned and ran.

"Oh yeah, I'm not the one that's blue!" Frenzy yelled after him. Rumble glowered and slapped the red cassetticon across the back of the head. "I'M BLUE YOU IDIOT!"

"oh, right. oops. wait, I DIDN'T MEAN YOU!" Rumble gave Frenzy a glare.

x

Dusk walked into Razer's workshop and leaned again the doorframe, grinning behind her facemask. "You'll never guess what happened today." she said. Razer didn't glance up from his work. "oh?" The blue and pink femme nodded. "They got our flying spy-device working." Razer nearly dropped his welding tool. "They did?" he paused, then turned it off, swiveling his chair to face her. She nodded and pushed away from the metal to walk over to him. "You see? the sparklet is smarter than you give him credit for." she said. Razer set down his tool and looked at his project. "Maybe they can help me build this little "pet project". he said half-seriously. Dusk huffed softly. "I think you're doing just fine. I'm sure you'll get it working soon enough." Razer looked at the half-built device. "I hope so." he finally said.

x

Meanwhile, Bullet's laptop had gained an audience, as the gunmetal grey Megatron-mimic steered their fly-cam, as Scythe had put it, through the halls of the Nemesis. "How did you get it to recieve a signal so far away?" Mic asked, leaning in slightly to get a better view. "We connected it up to the satellite Razer and Dusk use."

"hm." Mic glanced around. "I didn't know they had their own satellite. I wonder what else they're not telling us." he murmured. Needle scooted closer. "I'm glad you though about using your laptop to connect to the flycam. The most range I could get with it was a couple of hundred feet." he commented.

"yeah," Gobee put in, "And I helped with the paint job." he looked proud to be part of something so useful. Winstriker chuckled as she walked in. "Boys and their toys." she laughed, teasing. "no", Jade waved an arm "Come over here, you've gotta see this. The guys made a flying spy-camera shaped like a housefly. It's the funniest thing ever." She waved the femme over. "Really?" the purple a-10 Thunderbolt sat down with the others. Bullet steered the flycam into an air duct as one of the Decepticons walked past. "We're currently inside the Nemesis, spying on the Decepticons." he said. Windstriker's mouth fell open.

"Woah, cool." she said.

The flycam whizzed down the ventilation duct and towards a dead end. The group let out a collective "Aaaaugh! go left! go right! stop!" all at once as the wall came careening at the laptop screen. The flycam turned and flew straight up, then stopped when it reached the vent on the next level. The group exvented a sigh of relief.

"Bullet," Needle finally said, "You have got to learn how to drive." Mic snickered. "Yeah, like you do." he mimicked driving "You're on the wrong side of the road, skrrrt!" He laughed. Needle just smiled and shook his head. Bullet smiled, but said "Hey, I have my permit." The flycam buzzed out of the vent and down the hall, purposely turning upside-down, making everyone tilt their heads. Then it uprighted itself and perched atop a pipe running across the corridor.

It zoomed in towards the next corridor, panned, then zoomed back out. "Hey, does anyone hear that?" Bullet asked. The group stopped their chatter and listened. Sure enough, there was music coming from one of the rooms. The door slid open and stayed open. Skywarp sashayed out and looked one way then the other before continuing.

down the hall closer to them, Frenzy stepped out of his quarters, probably to yell at the seeker to turn it down. But instead, Frenzy stopped and *gaped*. Thundercracker had put on the song "It's the End of the world As We Know It" by R.E.M. and was doing what could only be described as the "Gallop dance" down the hall. It consisted of putting both hands on his waist and "galloping" down the hall one foot in front of the other like a fencing champion advancing on his opponent. When he reached the end of the hall, he turned around and headed back the other dircetion doing something similar to a scene out of a cowboy movie where a person was having their feet shot at, or a combination of that and some sort of brain-damaged idiot running in a karate stance. Legs bent halfway, picking up one foot then the other, throwing his arms in the air in wild abandon.

Rumble joined him outside their quarters with a "Whats all the fraggin noise ab-" he spotted the seeker "out." He blinked his optics off then on again. "Uh, Frenzy?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Thundercracker has finally lost it?"

Said red casetticon snorted. "I think the whole army has lost it, but that's just my opinion." he turned on his heels and walked back into their room. Rumble glanced at him. "I knew *that, but-" the door slid shut. The blue casetticon decided it was best to ignore the lunacy and follow his brother's example.

The door didn't open.

"HEY! LEMME IN!" he pounded on the door with his fists.

Thundercracker stopped dancing.

Rumble emitted an "Ohno." and plastered himself to the door. The crazy seeker had seen him and was starting to approach. "Frenzy, a little help here!" he pounded on the door behind him, optics never moving from the seeminly-insane blue Decepticon.

after what seemed like an eternity the door slid open and Rumble fell into his quarters. "I think the song is pretty accurate." he finally said after the door slid shut and the lock clicked into place. Frenzy snorted. Yeah, well, something's going on. and we can't even trust Sounds to know what's normal. He got hit by that wierd ragun's effects, too."

"I know." Rumble shuddered. Neither of them had heard the cassette host talk that much, ever. And wanting to spontaneously "snuggle", a purely human sentiment, made them both feel sick to their fuel talks. Though they wouldn't have minded being close to their gaurdian. It was just... odd.

Meanwhile, the flycam was still out in the corridor. "Hey, let's go see what Buckethead is up to." Jade suggested. "I don't know where his quarters are." Bullet pointed out. "Hmm," mic thought for a moment. "Maybe you can somehow use the flycam to tap into their main computer and find the layout of the place." he put in.

Bullet gave him a suprised look. "That's a really good idea." he grinned. "But... I don't think the flycam has a terminal access router." when he got blank looks, he simplified. "I mean it doesn't have usb or a serial port." a chorus of "Oh"'s sounded.

"Well, what about using the wireless connection?" Mic suggested. "Bullet nodded. "Of course. Silly me." He started to fly back in the direction he had come from. "Wait, which way was the control room again?"

"Here, lemme see it." Mic took the controller and started to go one way, but Needle interceded with "Wait, I think you were supposed to turn left at that last junction." Mic sighed and went back. "Wasn't it down another level?" windstriker commented. "I thought it was up a level." Needle replied. Mic rolled his optics and kept going straight. "Wait, no, it was the other way." Gobee pointed to the screen.

Mic turned anopther corner and took a right on the Y the duct made. "I thought it was more to the north." Needle commented. Winstriker gave him a look." Which way is north, the cam is deep underneath the ocean! we don't even know what's left or right!" she planted her hands on her hips. Needle held up both hands in an "I surrender motion." All right, I give up."Mic glanced at him. "Do you think you can steer it better?" The pickup truck shrugged. "Probably not, but it would be fun to try." So Mic held out the controller to him. "Hey, can I have a turn next?" Gobee leaned in." "I'd like to see how it handles, as well." Windstriker didn't seem as excited at the prospect, though.

Half an hour and about a hundred right turns (and wrong turns) later, the flycam exited the ductwork. "You know what, let's just go down the corridors." Windstriker guided the flycam up to the top of the corridors and into a lift. "Real good going, windy. Now we're gonna be stuck in the elevator all night." Mic groused. Windstriker sighed and flew up to the top of the lift. "Nah, there's a little open space here." She flew up. "Yeah, but how are you gonna get out of the shaft now?" Mic folded his arms. Windstriker flew back down and perched the small spy-camera upside-down on the ceiling. "Here, go over to the corner. That way you can spy on anyone who enters the lift." jade pointed. So over the flycam went, and stuck itself in the corner of the lift.

"Yeah, great." Mic deadpanned. "All we have to do now is wait five hours for somebody to use the thing so we can get back out again." Bullet held out a hand for the remote and Windstriker handed it over. "If my theory is correct..." he flew up and out of the lift into the shaft, "Ther should be an access panel or grating of some kind somewhere around here... aha!" He found one of the ventwork grates and flew into it. "There. And now we're back in the ventwork again." The flycam buzzed along the darkness. "Great, we're lost." Needle deadpanned." Bullet simply kept his optics on the screen. There, ahead of the flying spycam, was a light. The "bug" headed for it, and buzzed out into the light.

It took a ninety-degree angle turn straight up to avoid another duct running across the ceiling of the room, and perched atop it, zooming in and down onto the room below. "Well, whattya know." Needle breathed. Bullet chuckled. "Oh ye of little faith." he grinned. Mic rolled his optics. Again. The flycam had finally found the Decepticon base's control room.


	2. Chapter 2

Razer shut the access panel on his device. That was one more part of it done. He decided to go see what the rest of the group was up to. When he walked in, Bullet had flown the flycam down to the Nemesis computer and was trying to connect to the computer. "This should work.." he talked as he typed away on his laptop computer. "Unless the computer is password protected. Then my computer won't be able to connect to it." he said, bringing up the network connections control panel on his laptop. "aha." He grinned. "It's not protected. That's funny." Jade leaned over to take a look. "Why is it funny?"

Bullet shrugged. "Well, I would have thought the Decepticons would have password protection to keep the Autobots from hacking into their computer." Now Razer spoke. "You see, that just shows you how stupid they can be." The silver mech looked up. "Oh hi Razer. We didn't see you there." he kept typing. The flier squatted down so he was level with the rest of the group. "Dusk tells me your group repaired the flying spy-camera and are now using it to spy on the Decepticons?" he said.

Bullet nodded. "Actually, Needle repaired it. I just connected it to the my computer and the satellite oops." he paused. He realised all to late that Razer might not appreciate the team using the connection between the satellite and the base. But the black, green, and reddish-brown flier didn't seem to mind. He instead put a hand on Bullet's shoulder. "You have done extremely well. This device and the connections for it your team has put together will be invaluable in our mission." he sounded like he wanted to add a "thank you" to that, but he did not.

Bullet silently wondered what "our mission" meant, but didn't ask. "Tell me, youngling, what are you doing now?" Bullet typed a bit more. "I'm setting up the flycam so my computer can connect directly to the Decepticons' main computer. If I can set up the router throguh the flycam, I may be able to cross-connect the linkup with the satellite we have up in orbit." he gave the flier a sidelong glance. "Making a connection then taking out the middleman." Razer nodded. "I understood you."

"Oh. Right." Bullet clicked a couple things, then leaned back. "That should do it. All we have to do is sit back and wait for the connection to go through. It can take a while for it to show up in the network properties. Razer looked at the screen, and silently hoped this... computer prodigy could do it. He reminded himself to thank Dusk for believing in the youngling. His mate certainly could see things sometimes where he could not. It made him all the more thankful she had survived their mutual hardships and was by his side in their mission to bring this meaningless and destructive war to an end.

The computer beeped. Bullet grinned. "ahem, excuse me for a minute." he calmly set down the computer, stood up, then threw and arm in the air. "YESSS!" he grinned again then sat down and started typing. "Okay, the first step is done, but I have to find the back-door entry point into their computer system. The only files accessible through the network are the folders that're marked as shared. But if I can find the other way to get in..." his fingers flew over the keyboard, and he made a dissapointed noise. "This is going to take a while." he stated. Razer nodded and stood. "You are doing very well. I have faith in your abilities, Bullet." Ther grey mech looked up at him. "Thanks. I can't promise anything, but I'll try my best."

Razer nodded. "Keep me informed." He walked out. After a minuter or two, Mic looked around, then stood up. "I'm gonna go see if I can find a radio or something. "Hey," Needle stood too. "How about some target practice? you know we have guns. Maybe we can find some rocks to shoot or something, if Scythe will let us. "Let us? what are we, five? come on. Let's go." Mic huffed. Winstriker watched them leave. "I hope Scythe doesn't blow a gasket. Thet go the wrong way and the Autobots could see them." Buller glanced at twhere they had dissapeared to before going back to his typing. "I'm sure they'll be just fine. They probly won't wander too far from the base."

Another moment or two passed, and Gobee hopped up. "I'm gonna go see if they have a radio. That sounds like a good idea."

Windstriker stood also. "Yeah. Maybe Dusk has one. we could go ask." The little black and silver car nodded back. "Yeah, that sounds good." He then chuckled "Hey, maybe we could get Needle to build us a Playstation so we could play videogames.

"Oh, ha ha you guys. I'm not that much of a genius." Needle retorted. But he stood up anyway. "I wonder if they've got any more of that energy stuff. Have you had any of it yet?" the group walked out of hearing range, leaving Jade and Bullet and the laptop. "You don't have to stay here and watch me work if you don't want to." he said.

"Meh. It's not like there's anything better to do." Jade rested her chin in her hand. "Besides, it's kinda cool that we're gonna see what's in the Nemesis computer. I wonder what all goes on. Hey!" She let her hand drop. "We could probably access their security cameras if you can get into their computer system!"

Bullet sounded nonplussed. "That's the plan." He clicked on something else and scrolled down a list of items. "That would be pretty cool." Jade nodded. Then realised she was distracting him. "Okay, I'm gonna go, uhm, well, I'll just find something to do. Talk to you later." she waved as she headed for the rest of the undergroound mountainbase. Bullet waved back without looking up.

x

Soundwave had finally had to send his casettes back to the Nemesis. Besides wanting to someone anytime they said and ill word or even glared at Rumble or Frenzy, he found himself wanting to just scoop up his creations and huggle them. Or just be close to them. In fact, every time they took a break, he did just that.

He found himself constantly talking to them. So much so, he was barely getting any work done. But then, he would have talked to anyone. In fact, he noted, he really *really* liked talking. He didn't know why he hadn't done it more before now. Or singing. Yes, soundwave decided, he hated silence. Although he finally had to settle for the sound of the Constructicons working after Hook threatened to permanently offline his vocoder unit. He guessed there were only so many rounds of "Twinkle twinkle little star" a mech could take. Or "The song that never ends."

But that had just been to make himself feel better after Frenzy had flailed in an attempt to escape after Soundwave had started rocking him and softly singing "Twinkle Little Star". He and Rumble complained that Soundwave was treating them like a pair of sparklets. Well, at least Laserbeak and Buzzsaw diudn't mind. He wondered where the two were and mentally called them. They had dissapeared into the base after he returned for repair supplies and tools. Perhaps it would be best if they stayed here anyway.

Meanwhile, He didn't notice one of the security cameras had swiveled towards them. On the other end of it, Bullet leaned back and basked in the glory of his genius. Well, he wouldn't actually have stated it that way, but it did feel pretty doggone good. He grinned and hit his comm. "Razer, I just wanted to inform you that I have tapped into the Decepticon base's security cameras. I now have access to their main computer."

Razer grinned on the other end of the comm. "Excellent. You have done exceptionally well. I will be there in a few minutes. I would like to see just what your laptop connection can do. However, I must finish what I am immediately working on first. I shall make haste and join you momentarily."

"Okay." Bullet sounded like he shrugged. "Did you want me to hook up the laptop to the base computer? I'm not sure I could do it right away, cause the keyboard is in Cybertronian, but I could try."

"That's all right. I will help you learn how to use the computer." Razer finished testing the components and set them aside. "I am on my way."

"Okay, see you soon." the comm line closed and Bullet grinned. Time to bring the flycam home. Besides, there were better uses for it now anyway.

x

Mic stared down the rock perched atop the ridge not too far away. "You're goin' down, decepticon." he took a cowboyish pose. Needle rolled his optics behind his optic band. The white camaro whipped out his pistol and fired.

and missed by two feet. Needle looked away. He wasn't going to say anything. "You didn't see that." Mic said. "See what?" Needle grinned. Mic snorted and fired again. He hit the rocky ridge. He put the pistol back in it's holstier. "Oh, you think you can do better?" he taunted. NBe my guest." he made a hand motion. Needle pulled out his rifle and took careful aim. He fired and the bolt of energy glanced off the edge of the rock. "hm." he made a noise. Mic just chuckled. "see. You couldn't hit it either." Needle just shrugged. Whatever."

"Whatever? what if it was a Decepticon?"

"I'd hide behind you."

"Oh ha ha. What if I jumped out of the way?"

"Pfft. you? jump? Are you sure you'd want to scratch your paint?"

"Right. Like the Decepticons wouldn't make a bigger one?"

from behind them Wyldkat rolled her optics. "boys will be boys." she grinned at the both of them. "Oh yeah, you think you can do better?" Mic challenged. Wyldkat shrugged. "I don't like wasting ammunition, but thanks for the invitation."

"chicken." Needle taunted. Wyldkat stopped and gave him a "Really?" look. "Yeah." Mic added. Wyldkat made a sound something like a sigh. "All right, just a couple of rounds." she walked up, and the two mechs parted to let her through. The carfemme pulled out her gun and aimed, and fired.

The rock exploded. Wyldkat "hmm"ed. and Mic and Needle exchanged suprised looks. "Can... uhm, can you show us how to do that?" he asked. "Aw, it was beginner's luck!" Mic went and set up another rock. He motioned to it. Wyldkat fired again. The rock flew back from it's perch, a scorch mark across it's surface. He gave her a look. "It's no big thing. Just make sure you line up the little notches on the front and back of your gun" she motioned to the small projections "with your trget. You try it."

Mic "harrumph"ed again and aimed at a smaller rock to the right. He fired and the rock blew into dust. "Hey, I got it." he chuckled. "Cool, kat, thanks!" Wyldkat simply nodded, smiling. "no problem. I hope you two enjoy yourselves." she started to walk away. "Hey wait, where are you going?" Needle called after her. "I have some stuff I gotta tend to. I'll be back later though." she called. "Okay, see you later." mic called after her. The carfemme waved and transformed, driving away.

x

Winstriker paused at Razer's workshop and was about to ask about a radio when she saw the two of them busily talking, leaning over whatever they were working on. They looked like they were working really hard on whatever it was, so the purple femme decided not to disturb them. she would ask about that radio later. She headed out to find Mic and Needle wherever they had decided to do their target practice.

Mic grinned and blasted another rock to dust. He did a cowboy-style pistol flip then magna-clipped the weapon to his side. "You might wanna make sure the safety's turned on before you do that." needle gave the weapon an almost accusing look." "Of course I made sure the safety was on." Mic whisked it out. "See?" he pointed it at a nearby tree. "I can pull the trigger all I want and-"

BLAM!

the top of the tree exploded in a shower of burning debris. Needle cringed and a nearby crow protested loudly. "Whoops." Mic laughed nervously and looked at the gun to find the miniscule switch and flip it. "sorry." Needle resisted the urge to facepalm. "Let's just hope nobody saw that." Mic frowned and muttered "I said I was sorry", but let it go. Needle took aim and fired. Another rock was blown to dust.

"Hey needle, is the safety turned on?" Mic asked teasingly. Needle just gave him a flat look. Windstriker walked up. 'Hi guys, you mind if I join you?" Mic turned to look at her. "No, sure you can." He took a step back, and the femme took out her gun. She took careful aim, fired, and missed.

The sound of screeching brakes, and startled cry, and a transformation-sound followed. "Watch where you're aiming that thing!" Gobee screeched.

"Sorry!" All three chorused. There was more mumbling and the little black and silver carmech walked up from the other side of the ridge. "Sorry about that Gobee." windstriker apologised. "I didn't know you were over there. It was my fault." she said. The little car looked a bit shaken, but otherwise unscathed. He looked at the ground. "It's okay." he mumbled.

"You wanna join us?" Windstriker asked after a minute. Gobee shrugged. "sure, but I'm probably not any good." he said. Needle huffed. "That's okay, neither are we." mic huffed. "Speak for yourself." Windstriker smirked back. she knew the white camaro was only joking.

A few minutes later, Jade came walking up. "Hey, have you guys seen Wyldkat come past here?" Mic frowned and kept shooting. "Yeah." Needle glanced over. "She went past here and drove off about five minutes ago." he glanced at Mic. "Nuts!" Jade folded her arms. "Why?" windstriker questioned, "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing. Jade waved a hand. "I was just wondering how she was handling things." She shrugged it off like it was no big deal. "Hm. Well, I'm sure she'll be back soon." Windstriker checked the charge in her gun. Jade nodded. She looked over at Mic. He apparently was still annoyed, and blamed her for their arrival in this universe.

The seekerfemme was about to leave when Scythe appeared from behind them. "I see you have found something useful to do with your time." he smiled. The group glanced over at him. He glanced at Jade, then said "I have been talking with Razer and Dusk. I think we should hold a meeting about how to best survive in this world until we can find a way home." Mic looked like he was about to start complaining again Scythe gave him a look. "Also, Backdraft has finished his report, and we should hear what he has to say about the device." The group murmured agreement and followed the green dragon-mech back into the base.

x

Razer and Dusk waited by the base's main computer as the group filed in. Backdraft folded his arms and tried his best to blend into the shadows. He didn't want to be here. He didn't like "people". Especially people he didn't know. The only reason he could stand to be around Razer and Dusk was because they had known each other, worked together for decavorns. Possibly, well, probably more.

Scythe took up his spot on the right side of the computer opposite Razer and Dusk on the left, and the rest of the group prettymuch lined up in front of it. "Is everyone here?" he asked. Windstriker spoke up with "Everyone but Wyldkat."

"She's been gone a lot lately." Gobee piped up. "Yeah." Mic added accusingly. "Why is that?" Scythe almost shrugged. "As much as I would prefer for her to be here, she is nowhere to be found, and has her commlink turned off."

"Sounds supicious to me. Why is she sneaking off all the time?" Mic questioned. "Perhaps she just wants to be left alone. Some people aren't social butterflies." Backdraft muttered darkly. He got an elbow lightly in the midsection and a meaningful glance from Dusk at that. "What? I was just stating a theory." he said. but he let it go.

"I will make sure Wyldkat is properly informed of our newest information." Scythe assured them. "But until then," he motioned to Razer. "Please, proceed."

The reddish-brown, black, and green flier started typing. "Thus far, we have tried to study and decipher the full capabilities of the device you call the Transmognifier." he started, the screen showing the device as it turned and angled. "we don't have all of the details, however," the screen switched to another view of the device. "We do have some information on what it's original purpose could have been." The screen switched to a dissection-view. "This is how we believe the device is designed. Originally, it may have been some sort of engine, possibly to an early Cybertronian spaceship. However, because of Kintari history, we have learned that it has become much more than that.

Since you are unfamiliar with quantum mechanics, I'll spare you all the details. But we believe the original purpose of the machine was a trans-warp engine of some sort, able to transport an interplanetary vehicle from one point to another instantaneously. This is general believed to be achieved by creating a temporary hole or doorway through the very fabric of space-time."

At this, there was a collective gasp of suprise and several mutters. "Please. Let me continue." He held up a hand. The mumbling died down. "Anyway, after the device was discovered underneath Cybetron approximately nine and a half million years ago..." he had to stop and keep himself from grinning.

"Wow, seriously? that is such a long time!" Gobee exclaimed. "That's, like, before the dinosaurs and stuff, right?"

Razor let his smile show a little. "Yes. We believe it may have been before any significant life on this planet." he nodded. "Anyway, The mech who found it supposedly somehow bonded his spark to it, and since then the very nature of the device has been changed from it's original purpose."

"So it was lost for... a long time then?" Jade asked. "Yes, it was." Razer nodded.

"So, how can it send us home?" Mic shifted impatiently. He just wanted the flier to cut straight to the point. Razer paused for a second. He wasn't sure how exactly to say it. "I don't know how to state this delicately, but it's unclear how the device created this doorway. Perhaps..." he paused at the glare he got from the white Camaro. Mic folded his arms and narrowed his optics. "Perhaps if you were to re-enact the events that brought you here, you might be able to reopen the door." Mic snarled something unintelligible, and started to shift from foot to foot. Scythe raised an optic ridge at him. He knew the signs of impatience. Then again, Needle was looking pretty angry right now, too.

Razer tried to rethink what he was saying, then continued. "Thus far, we have revealed that the device reponds mostly to emotional stimuli. If you concentrate hard enough, there is a chance the device could respond to you. It may be a good portion of how you were all brought here."

Mic rolled his optics. Needle muttered "Give me a break." Jade rubbed a hand over her face in exasperation. Gobere whined (loudly) "I want to go home." and Windstriker put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. The little car was close to panicking. He just wanted to get home. He missed his mom! he tried not to let his shoulders shake. Dusk glanced at the gathered rabble, then gave Razer a pleading look.

"It's all right. It is not a matter of if you will get home again. It is a matter of when." the dark colored mech said. "How long?" Scythe asked. "What?" Razer had been trying to think of how long it would be and how to help make the device function more clearly and hadn't heard. "I said, how long will we be here before we can go home."

Razer thought for a second. "I doubt it will be more than a month.

"A MONTH!?" Mic raised his voice. "How the hell do you expect us to live her for a whole month when our parents are looking for us and we're in a whole nother dimension hiding out in a cave underneath a mountain!? We didn't ask to be broought here. And if it wasn't for SOMEONE handing around some alien ufo engine, we wouldn't be here right now!" he gave Jade a very clear glare. The comments were aimed at her and only her. The femme just shook her head. She wouldn't argue, but she wasn't about to take the blame for it.

Now Dusk stepped in. "We know what needs to be done in order to control the device. But not everyone can control the device and all it's functions. Do you know which one of you was holding the device when it brought you here?" she asked.

Everyone mumbled, then five heads turned to look right at Jade. Mic pointed and hissed "She was." Jade's shoulders fell. She remembered, she was. Dusk nodded. "Then maybe we should start with your influences. The device may respond to you."

"Yeah Jade." Needle snarked. "Open a door so we can go home."

finally, Jade was sick of being trounced on. She just glared back. "I didn't know what it was either. That's why I handed it around to you guys, I was hoping you could help me figure out what it was." Mic took a step out of the lineup and was about to yell when Scythe walked over. He lowered his voice. "I know you didn't mean to bring us here, but you may be able to get us home again." Though his tone sent a different message. His tone said "I know you don't like being blamed for this, but you have to just let it go because it won't help us any. So just let it go. Mic is angry because he's afraid."

Jade nodded. "Okay. And where do I start with this?" Scythe brought out the device and handed it to her. Razer watched as the aquamarine-colored or swirled blue, humming softly. When the femme took it from scythe's hands, it hummerd louder and the orb turned blue with a whitish core for an instant, then swirled back to it's original coloring. He glanced at Dusk with a raised optic ridge. She nodded slowly as if to say "I saw it too."

"Just... concentrate on it, and try to feel the current. If the color changes or the pattern, you know you're effecting it." Jade nodded and concentrated. But the harder she tried to *will* it to change, the more solid the orb became. Finally she just got annoyed. "Grrargh. Darnit. I just.. can't I don't know." Dusk tilted her head. "Stop trying so hard. Just... feel it. You don't have to sit here all the time and only try to do that." when she got a mumble from mic "Yes she does", she added "If you're not paying attention to it then it might be easier."

"Ooookay." Jade looked at the cylindrical device. With the silver casing stairstepping in diameter to a smaller size as it lengthened away from the core, the device looked almost ovalish. "What do I do with it until then?"

Dusk looked at her. "Try folding your seats, and you may be able to fit it into your cockpit." As she did this, Razer put in "What if someone sees it? they may know what it is and try to take it.

Mic piped up with "She could stay here *safely* in the base." he sounded almost sarcastic like "Oh, shouldn't we protect the special child." tone. But Dusk simply replied with "we could increase the tinting on your cockpit windows. That way nobody would be able to tell you have it.

"And how can she tell it's working?" Needle questioned. "She'll be able to feel it if it starts working."

"Really, how can she feel it? we didn't feel anything before." Mic jutted out a hand towards her. "Unless you know that from when *you've* handled it." he folded his arms.

Dusk suddenly felt self-concious. She didn't want to give too much away. She finally decided it would just be best not to lie about it. "Razer and I have both attempted to make the trans-mognifier function." she carefully pronounced the alien name for the device. "We didn't have any luck with it, though."

Gobee just looked at her. "and what if she can't make it work?" he asked timidly. Dusk simply looked at Jade and lifted her optic ridges for a second as though silently saying "Well, he asked." Scythe interceded with "I have the utmost faith in Jade's capabilities."

"Lucky for you." Mic grumbled, giving the other end of the lineup a sidelong look. Jade looked down at the floor. "I'll try my best."

Dusk nodded and looked at Jade. "I'll go see about mixing up some tinting spray. Jade, would you come with me please?" The femme slid her cockpit door shut over the device and followed the flier out of the room. Mic just glared after her. "And what if she can't." It was a statement, not a question. Scythe turned the computer off. "Then we will each take a turn trying to make the Transmognifier work. "How will we decide who goes next?" Needle put in. "Simple. We will draw straws. I think Jade should have fourty-eight hours, then after that, we will all draw straws..."

"wires. We don't have any of this... straw material you speak of." Razer put in.

"Right. We will then draw wires to see who will go next trying to make it work." Scythe finished.

"How about we give her twenty four." Needle folded his arms. Scythe sighed softly and thought about it. "If it will make you feel better, I will give her until sundown tomorrow. That is a full day and a half." Gobee and Windstriker had started to voice their opinions as well, but Scythe held up a hand. "That is all I am giving her." He gave them a look that said it was final. Non-negotiable.

"fine." the group mumbled their agreement, and Scythe noticed Backdraft had snuck off and dissapeared from the room. "Now, we have another subject to discuss, but we will have to wait until Dusk and Jade return. It will not be long. So if we could all wait here." The group nodded and dispersed around the room. Needle pulled out a homemade deck of playing cards and Gobee and Mic joined him at a nearby table.

x

Several minutes later, Jade and Dusk walked back into the room. "It's about time." Needle muttered, tossing his cards onto the table.

"All right. Now that you are back, we can discuss the other subject we have met about." The others stopped what they were doing. "Now, Bullet and I have been diuscussing what to do until we can return to our home dimension." he walked over to the computer. "There's allways a possibility of either the Autobots or Decepticons finding our base. BUT." he put accent on the "but" of that. "That may not happen. Either way, it would be in our best interests to be prepared that anything that should happen." Several people nodded. "Mic and Needle allready found a firing range where we can practice our target shooting. Razer and Dusk are working on setting up security cameras. We should fortify this mountainbase in case either faction finds us and try to get in."

Gobee held up a hand. "You don't think they'll really do that, do you?" Scythe shrugged. "I don't know. But it is allways best to be prepared for anything." Razer nodded. "Plan for the worst but hope for the best."

"right." Scythe nodded. "So we should try to get up to standard.. well, try to be as prepared as possible."

Windstriker smirked. "You mean like have some kind of novice boot camp?" Jade grinned at that. "That somehow sounds like fun. Like, paintball drill and stuff?"

Scythe looked at her. "No." he said flatly. The jet's shoulders fell in dissapointment. "Nuts."

"What I meant was to learn how to run, evade, shoot, and fight should the occasion arise."

Mic and Needle looked at each other. "Well we can out-drive anything on four wheels." Needle grinned. "Or two." Mic put in. Scythe simply nodded at that. "Good. That's something you are good at. Can anyone else tell me what they have expertise in?" There was some mumbling then Needle pointed at Gobee. "He's rteally good at hiding." Gobee glared back. "Gobee?" Scythe sounded slightly amused. The little black car shrugged. "I guess so." he mumbled.

Jade took a step forward and pointed to Windstriker. "Windy is the best flier in our group. Psh. She could probably do circles around Starscream."

"Yeah, right. I'm not that good." she looked from Jade to Scythe. "But I guess I'm okay at flying."

"Okay, you can fly circles around me." Jade retorted.

"Okay, Windstriker can fly very well." Schythe nodded. Anyone else?"

"I have a question." Dusk sounded. "Windstriker, do you think you could fly over the Autobot base without being detected?"

The purple femmejet thought for a second. "I don't know. I could try though."

"What, no! what if the Autobots see her!" Mic objected. "Yeah. We don't know what they would do if they caught one of us." Gobee put in.

"Razer answered "I doubt it would be anything nice. I have heard how the Autobot's torture their prisoners, keep them without fuel in dark cells beneath the mountain their base is in. They never see the light of day again."

Jade gave him a glare, though he didn't see it. Windstriker gave him a dark look as well. The two of them knew a few things. That was one of the differences between their dimension and this one. A certain cartoon they were both fans of. One that happened to be about two groups of battling giant alien robots. Though neither of them could say anything without being hurrassed for information that could help Razer and Dusk's little self-proclaimed war agasinst both sides.

"Anarchists." Windstriker thought. "They must be anarchists to think neither side is worthy of ruling Cybertron." she shook her head and decided it was best to keep her mind on the subject at hand. She'd have to talk to Jade later. The seekerfemme had been desperate to find and talk to Wyldkat for some reason, and the carfemme had been missing almost constantly ever since they had gotten here. somethign was going on, and she didn't like it.

After another minute or so of silence, Mic nudged Needle. "I still think I could out-drive you." He teased. "Yeah right. You and what sportscar." Mic harrumphed. "I happen to be one of the most sporty and fastest cars ever made. You know the camaro can even pace a corvette."

"I can not!" Needle leaned back in his chair. "Can too." Mic argued. "At least in acceleration, if not more."

"Uh-huh, sure. Well I can still out-shoot you." Her grinned. "Yeah right. That's why I got more rocks than you." Mic looked proud. "And I can outrun the both of you." Gobee taunted. "Yeah," Mic replied "You probably could. But only if there's a Decepticon behind you." he laughed. Needle chuckled.

"All right." Scythe held up a hand. "Then it is settled. Razer Dusk Bullet and I will set up an itinerary for us and we will begin our training the day after tomorrow."

"Uh, what's an eye-tin-rary?" Gobee asked? "It's like a schedule." Bullet answered. "Oh, right."

Jade and Windstriker exchanged a looki. "I hope this doesn't mean getting up at the butt-crack of dawn." Windstriker commented. Jade tilted her head. "Why, not an early riser?" Windstriker shook her head. "Someone likes sleeping in, huh?" jade smiled. Windstriker snickered. "Yeah, gotta get my beauty sleep. you know, keep my wax job all nice and shiny." she giggled. Scythe just ignorted then, but bullet rolled his optics. "Girls."

"Oh yeah," Winstriker aimed her barbs at him now. "I'll bet you couldn't get up at five in the morning."

"Hah. I could get up at four-thirty." He folded his arms. "Yeah, right. You'd be sleepwalking, doing the zombie-walk all the way out here to the control room." Jade laughed. Scythe simply listened. before ending the conversation with "We will decide what the appropriate time to get up will be." Bullet nodded. There was another bit of silence, then Scythe added "you can all go now. We'll figure things out and let you all know later." Everyone nodded and dispersed.

Gobbe edged up to Dusk. "Uhm, excuse me. Would you happen to have a radio?" he asked.

"Radio?" she tilted her head? "Oh, right! I apologise. I did not understand your weord for it. I may have a transmission reciever you could use." she nodded. "I will look for it later after Razer and I are done discussing your..." she searched for the word that had been used during the metting. "Your shoe-camp?" Gobee blinked. Razer interceded "I believe they called it boot camp."

"Yes, boot camp. right." Dusk nodded.

"Okay." Gobee walked away and hurried to catch up to Windstriker.

x

A couple of hours later, Jade found Windstriker just outside the mountainbase sitting on a natural outcropping of rocks watching the sun set. "Pretty good for a first couple of days, isn't it." Jade walked up. Windstriker looked over at her then back at the sunset. The jetfemme sat next to her. "I know. I want to go home, too." she said, pulling up her knees and folding her arms on top of them. She rested her chin on her folded arms. "I just hope I can find a way to get this device to work again and open a door for us." she said. She then looked at the ground. She lowered her voice. "I'm scared, windy. I don't know if I can do it or not." she near-whispered.

"Yeah." Windstriker looked at the stringy clouds reflecting red and orange in the sky. Jade took her silence as non-encouraging and said nothing more. Gobee left and walked inside. Both watched him leave then Jade scooted closer to Windstriker. "What was it you really wanted to talk to me about? you were giving me looks inside the base just now." She asked.

"Well," windstriker started. "Have you noticed how Wyldkat's been gone a lot lately?"

"Yeah!" Jade nodded. "I think something's going on. She's been gone almost constantly lately. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's anything good. I was trying to find her and..." she stopped, remembering her conversation with Scythe. "What? what is it?" Windstriker questioned. "Hmm? oh, it's nothing." Jade gave her a sidelong glance. Then sighed. "Okay, but you can't tell ANYONE about this, I mean it."

Windstriker's optic ridges went up. "What? What's going on?" she leaned in. Jade exvented, then started to explain.

"I was talking with Scythe earlier, and he said something about Wyldkat's been going to the Autobot base." Windstriker stifled a gasp. "Yeah. I know." Jade continued. "I don't know if the fliers found out, and I really hope not. I don't know why, or how long it's been going on, but somehow, for some reason, I think she knows some of the Autobots." Windstriker's optic ridges inched higher and the beginnings of a grin formed. "Now, don't go assuming anything." Jade held up a hand. "If the fliers even knew that we knew, they would be all over us, so we've got to keep this to ourselves for right now." she paused to look at the changing colors in the sky before them. "Like I said, I don't know if Scythe told the fliers or not. If he did, I think.,... I don't know if Kat would leave or not. Frankly, I hope she would. I like to think she's smarter than to stick around someplace like this where she could get into trouble for that." Windstriker nodded emphatically and lowered her voice to whisper conspiratorily "So, do you think she's friends with any of them?" she finally let her grin slip. Jade grinned back "I don't know. But that _would_ be pretty cool"

"I know!" Windstriker giggled and Jade chuckled as well. After a pause, Jade took an invent of air. "Okay, let's clear our heads here and think." she paused again, trying to think of what she was going to say to begin with.

Windstriker said "You don't think the fliers caught her and are keeping her locked up somewhere, do you?"

"Nah. I saw kat earlier and Mic and Needle said they saw her drive past today. If the fliers had found out she would have been locked up before that." Windstriker nodded.

"I wonder what she's telling them?" Jade's wings suddenly drooped and she gave her friend a sidelong glance. "I don't know." she said. "I hope it's nothing major though."

"Why?" windtriker made a motion with her hands.

"Because." jade let her arms drop from her knees. "It would be really bad. like, really _really_ bad, expecially if the Autobots show up on our doorstep!" she motioned to the base.

"Good point." Windstriker replied. She exvented. "Maybe we should find her before our friends do and find out what she's not telling us before they do."

"Yeah, but how?"

"whattya mean how? We could just fly over to wherever she is and ask her."

"Yeah." Jade said slowly "And what if she's at the Autobot base."

"Hm." Windstriker rested her chin on her hand. "Maybe we could wait for her at the door or something."

Jade shrugged. "I don't think Scythe would just confront her and turn her over to the fliers as soon as she walks in the door. I mean, it was a couple, well, more like three or so hours ago when I talked to him and he had talked to Kat before that, and he still hadn't decided whether or not to tell the fliers, so it's obvious he hasn't, well, probably, he probably hasn't yet." Jade looked at the sky turning purple now. "Besides, it's getting late. And we don't know when Scythe is libel to start waking everyone up in the morning." she gave the purple thunderbolt a lopsided smirk.

"Hm. Well, you can go on to bed if you want. I think I'm gonna wait out here for a bit." She replied. Jade looked at her for a minute. "That's okay, I think I'll stay." she finally said.

windstriker gave her an accusing glance. "You think I'm gonna go and fly over to the Autobot base, don't you?"

"No, I just don't feel right about leaving you out here all by yourself." Jade defended.

"Uh-huh. right."

"oh.. all right, maybe, just a little." But just because Wyldkat _may_ be friends with _some_ of them doesn't mean they'd instantly know us or recognise us or whatever... or be welcoming. You remember that first fight we had with them One of them shot at us." she pointed out.

"Yeah." windstriker thought about it for a second. "I suppose you're right. But we'll have to keep an eye... I mean an optic out for her tomorrow as soon as we get up."

"Right." the two grinned then walked back inside.

x

The recharge rooms were arranged with two people to a room. There were two berths to each one, with a table and two chairs. Windstriker wondered where they'd gotten the stuff, but didn't think too hard on it. the furniture looked rather homemade to begin with. She figured they'd snuck onto some construction site and gotten a bunch of supplies during the middle of the night or something.

The way things had been arranged, Windstriker and Jade had been assigned one room ,while Mic and Needle shared another room. Bullet and Scythe were together, and Gobee was rooming with Wyldkat. Razer and Dusk ovbiously had shared quarters, Windstriker suspected they were bonded, the equivalent to marriage she supposed (though Jade had other theories on just how that worked). And Backdraft was, well, nowhere to be found most of the time. Windstriker idly wondered if he didn't have a bunk stashed in the back of their workshop or something. She headed to the washracks while Jade went to find Dusk about some energon for everyone.

Mic flopped onto his rechrge berth and fluffed his "pillow" Needle rolled onto his, the lower one, and proceeded to immediately go to sleep. "Night Needle." Mic turned out the light without waiting for a reply.

Jade curled up on her recharge berth after finding a spare datapad on the nearby table. She was trying to figure out how to work it, and discovered it was fairly easy. even though she couldn't really undertand Cybertronian, she had just started pressing different buttons to see what did what. On the main menu was the list of programs, and tapping one would open the program. There was a back and save button, just like on a touch-screen mp3 player or a similar device. The femmeseeker gave a soft "Aha" as she tapped one of the icons and the screen and language glyphs morphed to english. "Dusk must've known we'd have a use for these." she said to Windstriker's back. But the purple femme gave to reply. Jade supposed she had gone to sleep.

She went back to the main menu and found the typing program. She started a new file. "End of day three. Bullet and I got back from Cybertron this morning, well, around 12 noon or so, and we had a chat with Scythe about a novice boot camp of sorts. They all decided since I was the last person to handle the device, they call it the Transmognifier, that I somehow have control over it. So they've told me I'm now responsible for opening the doorway between dimensions that'll send us home. Oh joy. *sigh*."

"Also, Wyldkat has been missing for a while, and I found out thanks to Scythe that she's been running off to visit the Autobots. Heh. I bet Windy is just green with jealousy." she thought for a second, then deleted the last part about Windstriker being jealous, then continued. "I hope the fliers don't find out. It would be helpful if we could keep track of what the Autobots are doing. Well, I need to get some sleep now. I'll type again tomorrow. More soon! ~Jade."

She saved the file then climbed up to the top berth, slid the datapad under her pillow with a silent reminder to thank Dusk tomorrow, then went to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Yes, I rewrote one of the fanchar100 fics, "Sunrise" so I could use it for this fic. Also, the ideas on subspace tagging is all mine. Feel free to reuse the concept if you like. I won't mind. Also, pleasse review if you want to see more! I practically live for reviews!

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"Hmm." the crimson and blue freightliner daycab-semi slowed down, casting his scanners to the right as he approached the semi dealership. "It would be nice to have a trailer like Prime's." he mused. And he had saved up enough money that if he wanted to get one, he would be able to. Highroad grinned and pulled in, transforming. "Hello, I'm interested in your trailers?" he pointed to the one in the front lot. An average 52 foot light grey trailer. He pretended to ignore the shocked look on the salesman's face, instead imagining the look on Prowl's face when he arrived back at the Ark with a newly-painted Prime mimic trailer.

"Err, yeah. that one." the salesman rubbed the back of his neck, squinting up at the tall robot. "Its three hundred an fifty seven dollars." HighRoad nodded, mentally tallying the "charges" Prowl would level at him when he got back to the Ark. Misappropriation of Autobot funds, impersonating an officer...He shook the thoughts out of his head.

Besides, didn't actually HAVE to use the Autobot's fund which the government had set up for them. That would be the reason for Prowl's loud protests of "misappropriation of funds". The fund was basically to provide for any supplies or whatever the Autobots or their human allies (or visitors) might need. And besides, if he used his own money, Prowl had one less basis for complaint.

"Yes, that's the one." Highroad reached into his subspace and fumbled with the tiny wallet. "Here you go." he handed the salesman a wad of money. "Uh... okay. uh, let me just ring that up for you real quick." the man's face lit up and he jogged towards the office yelling "Hey Randy, Randy! You're not gonna believe who I just sold this old trailer to!"

Highroad chuckled. Plus it would make a spectacular decoy for the Autobots in battle or whatever.

Five minutes later, the salesman had helped him hook up his newly-acquired trailer and he pulled out of the trailer with a quick honk of his airhorn. The salesman and the manager both waved their papers, grinning at the autographs they had gotten. (aside from his signature on the sales receipt). He turned onto the main highway and sped up, hoping Spike and Sparkplug would help him repaint it. They had discussed it, and the two had said they'd help him. Sparkplug had actually chuckled at the idea of having a trailer like Prime's. "Prowl's a little high-strung." the man had said. "But I'm sure he'll get used to the idea." he just patted the bot's leg.

When he reached the road that led to the Ark's entrance he slowed, wondering if Red Alert was watching him over the base's security cameras. He decided not to go in the front entrance. If he ran into Prowl, he'd probably have to listen to the second in command lecturing him about getting a trailer to look like Prime.

He turned and headed for Wheeljack's workshop. He hoped Spike and Sparklplug were there, to help him repaint his trailer. They were usually either there or in the repairbay. When he reached the workshop, it was empty, so he headed into the repirbay through the attatched door. Spike and Sparkplug waved as he pulled up. "Hey." he detatched his trailer and transformed. Ratchet looked up from where he was going through a box of parts.

Highroad glanced at the boxes strewn around, then asked. "I was wondering if you could help me put a subspace tag on my trailer when you get done." Ratchet tossed the part he was holding into the box and set the datapad on top of it. "I'm not busy, I was just going through some old parts." he walked over to the matte grey trailer and looked it over. "Hmmm. I may have some reactive paint that you can tint and use for it, so it'll integrate with your subspace field. Let me see if I have some spare tags." He went and shuffled through a set of drawers off to one side, then pulled out a small box. "Here it is." he pulled out a sheet of what looked almost like stickers, but if he had looked closerly, HighRoad would have seen they were actually printed circuits.

Ratchet walked over and laid them on the worktable, attaching a data cable to the small tear-away connection on one side. "Here." he held up the other end. "You need to access the circuits and create a linkup. then you'll be able to control the subspace tags and metally send it to or retrieve it from subspace." Highroad looked at the plug and cord. "Oh, so that's how it works." he mused. but he didn't know where the linkup would be on him.

Ratchet sighed and rolled his optics. "Younglings." he teased. "Don't know how to find stuff on their own chassis." he tapped a panel on the red and blue mech's forearm and a section of the armor slid back, revealing a binary access panel. He plugged it in. "You should see a window pop up in your HUD now. Just click confirm." he directed. HighRoad raised an optic ridge and mentally tried to move the imaginary mouse-pointer to click the confirm button. "huh." he half-laughed when it worked.

"It should only take a minute or two to go through." Ratchet said as data scrolled past on the little screen. Then a small window popped up that said "new hardware installed, subspace integration complete", and both windows closed. "So that's how that works!" HighRoad exclaimed.

Ratchet nodded as he disconnected the cable and handed it back to the red and white medic. Ratchet disconnected the cord and coiled it up, tossing it on the table. Then he carefully seperated the connector from the strip of circuits and handed them to HighRoad. "Here's those. Make sure you apply them at all the corners and edges of the vehicle BEFORE you apply the paint." The Prime-lookalike simply nodded.

"We'll help him get 'em on right." Wheeljack sounded from the door. Ratchet glanced at him. "Where were you? I could have used your help half an hour ago when I was up to my shoulder-servos in spare parts." he complained. "Sorry. I was helping Ironhide adjust his guns out at the shooting range." He looked down at the two humans.

Ratchet didn't look amused, but didn't say anything. He went to put the cable away, and Wheeljack said his hellos to Sparklplug and Spike. Ratchet came back with a container of paint. "Here you go." he set it on the table. He set the dye-set next to it. He didn't need to tell HighRoad to mix up the paint for at least thirty seconds. He imagined Wheeljack would know how to get the paint the right color. "come on." Wleejack picked up the paint and set the box of coloring on top of it. "Let's go get you fixed up." He headed for his workshop. Highroad and the two humans nodded.

Spike paused for a second before leaving, then turned at the door. "Hey Ratchet, what're you gonna do with those spare parts?"

"I don't know, why?" The white medic moved over another box. "Why?"

"Oh, I was just thinking, maybe I could look through them and do some tinkering later."

Ratchet shrugged. "Sure." He looked around for his datapad, let out a soft "aha", and picked it up. "They'll be here when you get back." he said, an unspoken "Believe me, they're not going anywhere." in there. He looked up after a second. "Oh, could you tell HighRoad to come back here after he gets his trailer painted? I need him to make a supply run for me."

"Sure, no problem!" Spike waved and walked out.

x

The Eastern sky was just starting to turn orangey with the first hints of the suns's morning light. A lone figure sat on the mountainside, watching the edge of the orange orb peek over the horizon, bathing the land before it in an almost magiacal glow. Off in the distance, the birds had begun to chirp, as though they had not a care in the world. But as far as that lone winged figure sitting on the mountainside, it was otherwise.

Jade had stropped by Wyldkat's quarters, but the carfemme wasn't there. Gobee had sleepily told Jade to "just go back to sleep. It's too early mumble mumble mumble." and the door slid shut. Thinking the car might have gone for an early-morning drive, Jade went out to look for her. But since there were no signs of her, she decided to have a seat on the nearby mountaintop and wait.

Jade had tried to ask Gobee if she'd made it home, and he mumbled something vague about her being there, so the jetfemme had to assumed that she had returned to base at some point in time. But anywat, out here away from the base, Jade had a perfect view of the surrounding area, as well as the main entrance to the Kintari mountainbase. So she could see Wyldkat returning, even if she tried to sneak past.

Plus, she had a nice view of the sunrise. Jade offlined her optics for a minute, just taking it all in. She loved the sunrise. Something about it was like the promise of a new day. Something about the end of darkness and the return to light. she smiled, starting to feel at peace. A rarity in a world so tumultuous as this one.

She put a hand absently over her cockpit window, not even realising the transmognifier was there until it made a soft pinging noise. Jade blinked. did it just ping at her? she grinned and concentrated, But she got nothing in return for her efforts. She huffed sotly. "Just wait, I'll figure you out soon enough." she mused.

She shook her head. She was talking to an inanimate object like it was person. How rediculous. She exvented and pulled her knees up to her chest, crossing her arms on top of them and resting her chin on her arms. As she watched the orange orb slowly rise, she remembered the datapad she'd found yesterday. She had stashed it in a subspace pocket before leaving, thank goodness. she started typing.

Datapad Journal Entry 28-05-01-03

"How many times have I watched the birds fly over our world, oblivious to the troubles we Earth-Walkers have? I'd Wished so long that I could fly above the earth and all it's worries. To be carefree and happy like they are. To feel the wind around me, and swim in an ocean of sky blue and clouds. It's so peacefull up there. Not like down here, with all the fighting and drama that goes on around us all the time." she shook her head at the thought. So much stress.

She half-smiled at the thought, glad that when she and her friends had come here she hadn't been turned into a car. She silently thanked the powers that be for granting her that longtime-wish, and finally allowing her to fly. She flicked her wings as an Eagle called in the distance. she wondered how it would be to actually be a bird instead of a jet. Too bad they hadn't arrived in a time or dimension where robots could turn into animals. She snickered at the thought and shook her head. "Yeah, right. Like Scythe isn't enough of a lizard-butt now." she laughed out loud at the sentiment, imagining the green iridescent american dragon as a tyrannasaurus rex. "Pfft. Tyrannical rex. Whoops! I typed that wrong!" she went back and started to erase it, realised what it said, giggled, and decided to leave it.

"This journal thing is kinda fun sometimes. Just the typos alone keep me amused. heh. Of course, sometimes living with giant robots is fun sometimes too. Razer and Dusk don't allways understand human terms of phrases. Tch. I could so get them to say something sideways. I gotta remind myself to make a bet with Mic later on that. Or Needle. Yeah. I don't think Mic has forgiven me yet. Not that this thing was my fault to be forgiven. But we'll get through it, I'm sure.

I hope."

The sun was now halfway up, and the muave and blue jet could feel it's warm embrace, as though promising a fresh start with the new day, the worries of the previous day forgotten, erased in the sun's reassuring glow. Green optics squinted against the light, but Jade couldn't make her eyes move away from the beautiful scene. "No wonder photographers take pictures of the sunrise." she thought. She sighed, turning her attention back to the datapad in her hands. She had been typing on it before the sunrise caught her attention so undividedly.

It's been a month. That's been how long since I saw my soulmate, Dennis. No, not since we've been here. We've only been here about three days (this would be number four. Argh!) Anyway, last time I saw him, Sure, it seems like it was just yesterday. But it feels like an eternity without him here beside me.

Yeah, we should both be here. Maybe it's better we're not. I'd be so worried about something happening to him, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing. And if we were in battle, I'd probably get the both of us blasted to scrap metal. Though I'm pretty sure he would know exactly what to do about the fliers. I mean, they seem friendly and helpful enough, but there's this underlying... I don't know how to describe it. It's like there's something there and I can sense it, but it's not openly obvious. It's just... some of their actions, or should I say their reactions are off. They remind me a bit of cons in how they hate the Autobots, but they also hate the Decepticons.

Well, anyway, there's some kind of a... threatening? I don't know. I don't want to accuse them of anything. I'm not crazy, but there's something like if we turn away from them, I think they would do something bad. Like I said, they haven't shown any outward signs of meanness or whatever you'd call it, but I think... meh, nevermind. Anyway, if my fiance' were here, he'd know just what to do.

It's too bad he went on vacation with his parents. A part of me keeps hoping maybe he'll show up to my rescue, like some knight in shining armor. (no pun intended.) I'm not sure how much of this war and it's violence I can take without his reassurance. Is it too much to hope? After all he did have the cylindrical-glowing device in the trunk of his car. How can he not know about this universe? He's not that stupid, right?

(sigh)

It's wierd. I don't know if it's normal or not to feel this way. So empty without him. I mean, when we lived together, he worked eight hours a day, and so did I. Our work schedules only allowed us to have a few, maybe four, hours together each day. We only had the same day off about once or twice a month. And except for those four hours or so, the only time we really got to spend together and be really close was when we slept. Is that it?

Maybe that's it.

Maybe I just miss the feeling of his arms wrapped around me as I fell asleep. I really miss him. And the possibility that I may never see him again... I can't let myself think like that. I will see him again. I have to keep telling myself that. I just miss being close to him, I even when we were both home, and we may have been two rooms away from each other, at least I could walk a few meters to fall into his loving embrace.

Will I ever see him again?

No. I can't think like that!

I have to think. hope. He had the device in his CAR for Primus's sake! He has to know!

. . . I have to calm down.

It's just that I've spent the last year living with him. Even when he wasn't home, I had the security of knowing he would come home to me at the end of his work day. But now? what now?"

Jade sighed, folding her arms across her pulled-up knees, and rested her forehead on her arms. After a minute, she raised her head agin.

"It's wierd, you know. You get so used to them being there, that it seems like it's normal. No big thing. Like they're supposed to be there. Then when they're gone, it's like suddenly there's a part of you missing. Like a puzzle missing a peice right at it's center. Only, it's where no one can see it; But you know that empty space is there, just waiting to be filled. And only you can see it.

They say when two souls touch, they become inseperable. The two in a sense become a part of each other. Linked in a way that can't be explained. I allways hated being alone, anyway. Maybe that's why I miss him so much. Then again, I doubt that's why. When we first became friends, (heck, when we first met, ) I sensed something. I just didn't recognise it. They say you know when you first meet your 'true love'. The one you're going to marry. But you don't know it until later.

I guess it's true, huh?

I miss him so much. I wonder how long it'll be (or if I'll ever) find my way back home, back into his arms. Although, I feel like he were here sometimes, It's like I can almost hear his voice in the back of my processor, telling me that everything's gonna be okay."

she smiled weakly and looked up from her datapad long enough to watch a human vehicle make it's way across the desert, kicking up dust in it's hurried journey across the morning landscape. She barely noticed the coloration, though. The crimson and navy-blue semi seemed to be doing just fine off-road as it sped along the empty plain.

"Hmmph. Probably late for a delivery and looking for a shortcut." she shook her head at the semi as it navigated the flatland. "I feel sorry for the driver dumb enough to go offroading in a semi." she chuckled, the scene not even striking her as odd.

"No, on second thought, I take that back." she grinned, standing and shoving the datapad into a subspace jumped off her mountain spot into the air."yep, I'm mean. And I'm bored. Not like I'm gonna hurt him or anything." she thought out loud. And everyone else is still asleep."

"hopefully." she added.

She knew Scythe would NOT be happy if she single-handedly revealed their location. Though the the seeker's spontaneous (and somewhat mischevious) side prodded her to 'just give the human a scare.' She grinned."I wonder what the truck is carrying. Groceries? toilet paper?" she laughed out loud at the thought of the trailer tumbling sending long white strings all over the desert. Normally kids toilet papered trees on Haloween. What would Scythe think of giant alien robots toilet papering cactuses and pine trees in the middle of the summer? She stifled that giggle. It was just rediculous. Although a truckload of baby powder would be quite interesting too. she reminded herself that she wasn't going to do that, though.

If someone's shipping load was lost, it meant money lost. And somebody had to pay for all that. She almost pouted, but reminded herself that just because she was bigger did not give her the right to be mean. But it wouldn't hurt to give the driver a little startle, right?

"Besides, that'll help us in the long run, cause it'll keep the humans out of our area." she decided. "We wouldn't want them to see any of us milling around outside the mountainbase and call the Autobots on us, now would we?" she added, gaining altitude and flying towards the speeding vehicle.

The crimson and dark blue Freightliner semi sped across the dusty desert plain, music blaring loudly from the radio, and out the open window. The 40-something brunette man in the driver's seat hummed along sotly, not even realizing his fingers were drumming the steering wheel in time with the music.

Suddenly, a muave and blue blur appeared from nowhere and flashed in front of the semi, coming way to close to the front grill.

"What the!.."

If it was a bird, it had to be a damn crazy one, that was for sure, Sparkplug decided.

Jade did a midair flip, and turned around towards the vehicle, landing right in it's path two hundred feet away, grinning from audio-to-audio like a she-demon.

"Going somewhere?"

The driver opened the door and jumped, doing a roll as he hit the ground. Jade almost made a dissapointed sound. Instead, she just lifted an optic ridge at him. "okay. Gotta give him credit for trying to get away." she though amusedly.

Unfortunately, The semi didn't slow down, though. She thought it might slow gradually since it's driver wasn't there to have his foot on the accellerator. But she was wrong. Really wrong.

In fact, she swore she could hear the engine roar as it accelerated. She realised this AND her mistake right about the time the semi detatched itself from the trailer and transformed.

The red and blue Autobot landed in an impressive feet-first slide, kicking up twin dust trails in his wake. His skid halted right in front of the suprised femmeseeker, his rifle allready in his hand.

Jade nearly fainted. she could have kicked herself SO hard right now. Of course it just HAD to be HIM. It just made sense, somehow.

"Not you!"

"Oh yes, it's me." A snicker could be heard in the baritone voice.

Jade mentally smacked herself.

High Road grinned behind his vocaliser mask. He had only been on a supply run for the base. And since he looked somewhat like the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, he had repainted his trailer to suit. It wasn't like he ever used the thing anyway. Besides, it was a good decoy in case the Decepticons should try anything.

"Is it just me, or is Starscream getting a bit girly?" he chuckled to the human, who was standing a few yards away.

Insult AND the Autobot leader. Oh what a beautiful morning THIS was turning out to be, Jade thought sourly. She hoped he would just go away and leave her alone. Of course that wasn't going to happen, obviously, but it still didn't keep her from hoping.

Really really hard.

The tall red and blue Autobot crossed his arms smugly. "So, where's blundercracker and sky-twerp?" he chirped. Jade almost laughed. If he hadn't have just insulted her, that is. She made a mental note to remember those nicknames. And who the heck was he to compare her to Starscream, anyway? that was just downright insulting!

the seeker planted her hands on her hips and offendedly spat "Last I checked I was still female!"

"I know." (Another snicker, although this time, HighRoad couldn't catch himself in time to keep it from being audible. She really thought he was Optimus Prime! That in itself was funny!)

Jade's jaw dropped, her expression one of "Oh. No. You. Just. Did. Not!"

Her head bobbed in that snarky way someone does when they're really mad as she said "Oh, so you think it's funny huh, well I'm not Starscream and in case you haven't noticed you're alone out here!."

She glanced around quickly to be sure, and caught Sparkplug sniggering."What are YOU laughing at, CHUCKLES, you're next!" the human's grin vanished instantly when Jade started took a step towards him. HighRoad tightened his grip on his weapon, hoping not to have to use it, but Jade's comlink came on instead.

Syus's voice came through. He sounded polite, if not...amused?

Jade wondered why the unvierse hated her so much.

"Jade, what's going on out there?" he asked in an oh-so-innocent voice.

He had been watching the entire exchange over the base's external cameras!

The green transformer was standing in front of the mountainbase's main viewscreen. His voice took on an amused tone. "Do you require assistance?"

Jade and Highroad both caught his tone. HighRoad cocked his head to one side slightly in a sarcastic look. Like he was just daring her to fight him. the *Autobot leader* (snicker). Jade, on the other hand, knew if she ran, she might have a chance to get away, if she didn't go right back to the base. Otherwise the Autobot would just follow her back to the group's base.

On the other hand, if she tried to fight him, well, this was Optimus Prime. There was no way _that_ would happen.

And Scythe was just baiting her, taking joy in the fact that she had done exactly what he'd told her to avoid; And was about to get the unholy SCRAP beat out of her by none other than the Autobot leader himself for it. If she asked him for help, though, he'd never let her hear the end of it. That was, if Prime didn't see Syus leaving the base and figure out where it was.

Either way, she was screwed.

"I'm fine." She relied through gritted teethplates.

"Okay." Syus sounded like he shrugged across the comline.

He also sounded smug.

"Just let me know if you change your mind."

Jade suddenly hated when he used that flippant 'I-don't-care' voice. The jet gave her comm a glare. She looked up, and realized the 'Autobot Leader' was still regaurding her with that slightly amused look.

"Oh, what? you think you've had a bad day? Just wait till later when the rest of my friends wake up!."

She could only hope.

"Really. There's more of us than just me! and then you're gonna be sorry." she nodded.

she prayed they weren't just standing by the computer watching and laughing as well.

The autobot leader just stood there. He didn't really move much. In fact, it seemed like he was waiting for someone. Oh no. what if the rest of his friends were on their way to meet him here? what if he had silently sent them a signal?

and of course her friends were probably making bets on how long it woul take for Prime to scrap her. Or they were busily making jokes about it.

And Windstriker was probably oogling-err, zooming in on Prime to get a good (ahem) look at him... or... whatever. Jade shook her head. Soemtimes that femme was just too much of a fangirl.

"Look, why don't I just go that way, and you just go that way, or get on with whatever you're doing, allright?" she waved a hand dismissively. " I don't feel like wasting the energy, and I'm sure you don't want to spend any extra time in the repairbay being peiced back together."

"Are you sure about that? I'd hate to see You in peices." there was a hidden chuckle in his voice.

"huh?... I hope you get a flat tire!" the jet glared even more, but it didn't seem to effect him. She just knew Scythe was watching her, too. She could FEEL his eyes staring at her across the camera feed. He probably thought it was funny, too. She wanted SO badly to turn towards the base camera and wave a finger at it.

Pity. Prime would know where it was, then.

"This isn't over Prime." she turned to walk away from him, but also away from the base at an angle.

"Uh-huh. sure." He replied.

Jade silently swore as she jumped into the air, heading the opposite direction of her base, in case he followed her, wishing she had stayed in recharge this morning instead of getting up. She wondered what her husband would have done had he been there instead of the Autobot leader...

She realised once there was some distance between them that she could have asked him just what the heck he was doing with Wyldkat that one day. She had seen the security feed. She mentally faceplamed. Again. Maybe that's why he didn't shoot her, curiosity perhaps? maybe Wyldkat had mentioned her. Oh great. And she just insulted him.

No actually," she thought angrily, "He insulted me first! I had every right to talk scrap to him!" she mentally nodded and circled around to head back to the base. She could see from her vantage point above the clouds that he had gone back into auto-mode and was driving away from the base. She exvented a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't actually known where the base was. That was good. Too bad she missed the opportunity to demand answers about him and Wyldkat.

She landed and glanced around before pinging the base computer to be let in. "are you sure you're alone?" Scythe's voice answered it over her comm. "Yes Scythe, I'm alone." she deadpanned. The heavy rock in front of the base entrance slid aside and she walked in.

"I was only concerned for your safety is all. There is no need to get upset." Scythe actually sounded like he meant it now. At least he wasn't all amused or anything. she hoped the others were awake. She was allready getting tired of this day and needed somebody to talk to.

She ignored his look as she walked past. She didn't want to hear what he said about going out alone, hurassing human vehicles. She just gave him a glance as he finished talking and went to see if Windstriker was up yet.

She found the purple flier in their shared quarters sitting at the table talking to Dusk when she walked in. They looked over. "Hi." Jade saw Dusk. "Oh, Dusk. I wanted to thank you for the datapad." she held up the small device. Dusk nodded. "I thought you might need one. I left one for each of the others as well." Windstriker held up hers, which was purple.

Jade grinned and pointed. "How did you get a purple one?" she asked teasingly. Windstriker just shrugged. Jade waved it off, though. She went over to her berth and flopped onto it. She buried her face in the pillow and waved a hand. "Don't mind me." she mumbled through the pillow.

"Bad morning?" Windstriker asked. "You have no idea." came the mumbled reply. Windstriker just shook her head and decided to let it go. She would ask later if she wanted to know.

Meanwhile, somewhere else...

Soundwave checked and rechecked the output circuit. Everything seemed to be in order. He hoped. He signaled Megatron.

The beeping prompted the silver mech to glance over from where he was laying on his recharge berth. What now? he just wanted to be left alone. Megatron was beginning to feel like nothing he did went right. Not that he would admit it. He supposed he should answer the commsignal, though.

Primus forbid Starscream should find out anything was wrong. He'de take the first chance he could to take over. "Yes?" he pressed the button to answer. He idly wondered if Starscream would be any better at this leader thing than him. Then again, he shook the trhought out of his head. Though it was mildly amusing to think of how it would feel to constantly stand by and go "Se,, I told you it wouldn't work!" He rolled his optics and reminded himself to go see Hook as soon as the Constructicon got back to base. Something was very very wrong.

"Megatron, the gun has been fully repaired." Soundwave's voice droned. "I checked and even double checked the circuits and the Constructicons checked the gun over as well. We believe it is ready to use, so your eminece can now destroy the Autobots at your leisure..." Megatron noted he'd have to drag Soundwave to see Hook as well. He gritted his denta and cut off the now-talkative communications officer. "Very well, I will be there shortly." and cut off the commlink before Soundwave could start talking again.

At the Ark, Prime was going over the report Jazz had submitted after sabotaging the Decepticons' latest supergun. He tapped a few keys on Teletraan-1's console to get the SkySpy to go over the area. He wanted to make sure the raygun was in so many peices it couldn't be fixed. Then if there were no Decepticons around, he'd send a few Autobots to pick up the peices and dispose of them.

His optics widened slightly when he saw that the gun was not only NOT destroyed, but Soundwave and the Constructicons were walking around it, checking over it to make sure it was working. Inside the top of the apparatus, behind the main gun part, a bluish purple crystal glowed softly. Prime hit his comm to call the troups together. They had to do something fast.

- A couple miles from the Ark, Razer was watching from the mountainbase computer screen as the Autobots left their base. He directed their sattellite's camera to scan across the landscape and spotted the blue glow. He zoomed in as Scythe walked in. "what is going on?" the green dragon-mech asked as he watched the Decepticons put their finishing touches on the weapon.

"The Decepticons have created a weapon to destroy the Autobots." Razer looked closer at the screen. "As much as I would like to have the Autobots destroyed the same as the Decepticons, it is likely the Decepticons would attempt to use their newest weapon on us, should they succeed in destroying the Autobots." He gave the suprised mech a glance. Scythe looked at the screen.

"What do you want me to do?"

Megatron landed, and waited for soundwave to show him that the gun was working. He knew this was a waste of time. He just sighed as Soundwave chattered on and on about the function of the device and one of the circuits was missing os they had vto bypass it. Wait, did he just say a part was missing? He tried to figure out if that was what Soundwave had said. He was talking so fast it was hard to make out everything he was saying.

Meanwhile, Razer had called his group to the main cavern of their mountainbase. Scythe was next to him. He took a deep intake of air, then started. "I know you may not consider this any of your concern, but it appears the Decepticons have bult a new supergun, and while it may not be our battle, Razer and I believe the decepticons will not hesitate to turn it against us, should they destroy the Autobots."

Several small gasps and questioning mumbles sounded. Razer stepped in with "Besides the fact that it is dangerous, this could be an opportunity for us to seize the device and use it for our own means."

now windstriker jumped in with "Like destroy the Decepticons ourselves?" she sounded a little too hopefull, Razer thought. He gave her a look, though she didn't see it for his vocoder mask and optic covering.

"Even if the Autobots were to gain control of the device, they may deciode to do the same, should they see us as their enemy." he held up a hand to keep people from commenting. "We have been in this war far longer than you. And believe me when I say any predilections you have have about the goodness or nobility of the Autobots, it is misplaced. They are not as just as they appear to be."

In the background, Jade rolled her optics and elbowed Windstriker lightly. "His shpiel kinda reminds you of "Megatron's Master Plan, doesn't it?" she whispered. Windstriker nodded and shushed her. They still hadn't told anyone about that cartoon in their home-universe they were both fans of. They knew the series, but if they told anyone that, Razer and Dusk would do everything in their power to use their information for their own personal gain, not the good of everyone involved.

Razer went on about how they were going to pull this off, and the two fliers listened quietly as Razer outlined his plan. Wyldkat stealthily rolled in and transformed. Jade caught the motion and glanced over, doing a double take. "Wydlkat!" she whispered loudly "Where have you been!?"

"Something you'd like to add, Jade?" razer tilted his head slightly. Jade stopped like a kid caught whispering the back of a school class. "No. Just welcoming Kat to the convo." she smiled innocently.

"Convo?" scythe echoed.

"Conversation. Sorry." Jade apologised.

"IF I may continue." Razert gave both warning glances. "Now then. We will sneak around this direction...

x x x x

Megatron wished he'd stayed at the Nemesis. He had a feeling this was going to be a bad day. He heard the sound of engines, and a transformation as Starscream landed. "You called, Megatron?" He asked softly. Megatron blinked then shook it off. He had called Starscream, but suddenly didn't know why. Maybe it was one of those "I'm miserable so you have to be miserable with me" things. That or maybe he suconciously hoped the device would blow up again and return them all to normal.

Funny, the constructicons weren't acting any differently. Wait, did he just see mixmaster and longhaul in the background playing that human game "Paper, Rock, Scissors"? He made a noise. Whatever. Like his day would get any better anyway. He sighed "Just... turn it on."

Prime transformed, pointing to direct Ironhide and Hoist one direction while he, Prowl, and Jazz went the other. Brawn scracked his knuckles. "About time we got to bust some Decepticon head-units." he grinned. Cliffjumper pulled out his rifle. "Yeah." In the background, Ratchet and wheeljack simply waited. Ratchet would normally have stayed at the Ark, but this seemed like it could become very nasty very quickly, so Prime had requested his presence. and, of course, Wheeljack was there in case they decided to turn the device on.

Jade and Winstriker circled then flew out again. Nobody noticed because they were above the cloudline. Prime transformed and walked up to the edge of the dip where the valley began. "Give us the device, Megatron." He boomed. Now, normally, Megatron would snarl something nasty in retort and fling himself at the Autobot leader, ready to brawl. This time, he just facepalmed. Starscream literally screamed "I told you it wouldn't work!" wand started to run. Yes, run. He apparently had gotten so scared he forgot he could fly.

"Get back here you cowardly idiot!" Megatron snarled, then looked over at the Constructicons. They had allready turned it on and the charge was slowly building. The rumble of the power cell got louder, turning into a low whine. Prime barely had time to decide whether to rush his enemy or dive for cover when the gun fired.

The Autobot leader was knocked back, and Ratchet ran over to his side, followed by Wheeljack. "Prime, you okay?" The Autobot leader got ot his feet. "I... think so." he blinked. The gun hadn't even scorched his armor. Brawn and Cliffjumper went for Mixmaster and Scrapper, and Ironhide got off a couple of good shots at Longhaul before the dump truck found a rock to hide behind.

Scythe glided in soundlessly, taking in the battle. Everything had descended into chaos, except for Hook, who was still at the controls, firing wildly at anyone and everyone that moved.

Sythe landed atop the gun, still in dragon mode and grinned, shuffling his wings. "Greetings." He lowered his head, revealing several rows of sharp teeth. The constructicon's optics went wide for a second, and he abandoned the device. "I have secured the device." Scythe commed Razer.

"Excellent." The black and reddish-brown flier transformed and landed, dusk at his side. "Get the gun!" Hoist hollered. Ratchet took aim and fired. Scythe snarled as the shot hit his wing. That hurt!" He simply looked over at the Autobot.

In the background, Bluestreak took aim at Dusk and fired. The femme shrieked as she collapsed, and Razer snarled. Another shot, this time hitting the ground next to the device, and he knew exactly where it had come from. "I will tear you apart, Autobot! Razer snarled, jumping into the air and heading straight for the young gunner. "Oh no ya don't!" Ironhide jumped up and grabbed a wing as the flier transformed. Razer hovered wobbily for a moment, grunting "Get off me!" then transformed and punched the van-mech in the face. They both hit the ground, and a fistfight followed.

Wyldkat hung back, seeing Razer get into a fistfight with Ironhide. "What're you waiting for?" Jade asked. Wyldkat scanned the battlefield. "They seem to be doing just fine." she commented. Megatron had finally gotten up the gumption to fight back when Prime jumped him. Starscream had taken to the air, remembering he still had flight systems. Though he suddenly found they weren't doing as well as they normally should.

The seeker wobbled dangerously, his chronometer readings blinking off and on. Jade grinned and took to the air. "Hey screamer." she flew past, turned, and came back, passing him again.

"Why you..." Starscream shrieked as his wing was hit and crashed into the trees. From several meters away, Prowl glanced over at Jazz, and the saboteur grinned. "Nice shot, prowlie-bot." Prowl gave him a look. "My name is not Prowlie-bot." he retorted. Though there wasn't time for another reply when Backdraft swung down low, peppering the area with weaponfire. Both bots dove for new cover as their rock was blown to dust.

- Meanwhile, back at the Nemesis, Thundercracker walked into his quarters, his music audible to anyone who passed him it was so loud. He turned it down and then turned his optics off then on again when he saw the pile of what could only be described as junk filling his, Skywarp, and Starscream's shared quarters.

A huge pile of broken glass, hubcaps, various scraps of metal, and what looked like a banner reading "Fort Rowdy Gathering" adorned the pile. "Like it?" Skywarp called from the top. The seeker was perched in a small indentation at the very top. Thundercracker looked closer and found it was all arranged around one small square blue circuit, complete with a crystal in a center. The entire pile was arranged in such a way the small circuitboard in the front and center of the pile was accented, like a shining gem in a pile of trash. "It's the crown jewel of my collection." Skywarp beamed. Thundercracker nearly facepalmed. "Is that a voltage regulator?" he pointed. "I dunno." Skywarp shrugged. "It's just purdy."

Meanwhile back on the battlefield, the decepti-gun started to spout smoke. Megatron glanced at it. "What's wrong with it?" he called to hook. "We had to reroute the power around the circuit regulator, it's missing!" the constructicon called back, exchanging weaponfire with yet another Autobot. Megatron groaned. This wasn't going to end well.

Meanwhile, Jade landed next to Starscream. He wasn't moving. "Star-" she stopped when he moved. "Owwwwwww!" The seeker whined, then started whimpering again. Jade blinked. This wasn't normal Starscream-ness.

"Why does this allways happen to me? I'm allways getting shot down. And does Megatron think anything of it, no! I'm just another mindless bit of CANNONFODDER!" He kicked at a rock from his prone position. "Uh..." Jade stopped.

She was going to... well, actually now that she thoguht of it, she wasn't sure what she would do. "Are you... okay?" she asked hesitantly, then cringed wishing she hadn't.

"DO I LOOK OKAY!" Starscream wailed. "I crashed into a tree and ow ow ow I think my wing is broken!" He tried to move then decided against it. Jade blinked and looked at the tree. His wing had been wedged between two larger branches, and the pine was all but laying on him.

"Okay. Here. Hold still" she practically sighed and charged her armcannon. Starscream cringed visibly, turning his optics off. When he realised the blasting sound hadn't hit him, he onlined them again. Jade shoved the tree away. "Better?" she asked.

If nothing else, the team could use whatever information starscream had. And when he was in a vulnerable place right now, she figured it would be just that much easier. Though seeing Prowl and Jazz come running up from too close away (where HAD they been?) with their weapons drawn made her think twice. "Uhmm, hi?" she held up her hands. Crap. They probably thought she was a Decepticon now.

Prime punched Megatron again, and Megatron tried to hit back but missed. So he instead settled for tackling the Autobot leader. "Fine. If I can't have the gun, nobody can!" he knew this was a bad idea. But he didn't want the Autobots getting his gun. He turned and fired his armcannon at it. The gun threw sparks, then exploded.

"Lookout!" someone yelled. Prime grunted as the impact hit him and Megatron, sending them both sprawling. Megatron stood and pointed his armcannon at the autobot leader's head. "This time, Prime, I win." He goated. Then fired.

His shot missed by a mile when something heavy slammed into him, though. The purple blur tumbled head over heels, activated after burners and took off again.

Megatron took to the sky. "Decepticons, destroy the device, now!" He yelled. The rest of the Decepticons ran for where their leader was, shooting at what remained of the device as they left.

Windstriker smirked. Ratchet was at least a hundred yards from the Autobot leader, and the rest of the Autobots were persuing the retreating Decepticons, leaving their leader... she grinned and swooped down.

Prime put a hand over the gash in his armor. It wasn't life-threatening, but it hurt. Now, he saw one of the unidentified mechs walking up. The mysterious third group. He wondered if they were working with the Decepticons. Why else would they be here if the Decepticons weren't? He glanced up towards the hill and saw Jazz and Prowl advancing on a seeker that looked a lot like Starscream. But Starscream was on the ground. The seeker took to the air and left.

"Hey, you okay?" windstriker kept glancing around. She didn't want anyone to see her talking to the Autobot leader. Jade circled and landed next to her. "Windy, we gotta go. The others are gonna be retreating any minute." she glanced at Prime. "I know, you're probably wondering..." she trailed off then said "You can't let them see you talking to them." Windstriker nodded, and spotted something white in the distance. The Autobot medic.

Winstriker started to say "I..." she suddenly didn't know what to say. Jade cut in with "I'm Jade, that's Windstriker, and she's a fangirl. She thinks you're cute."

Windstriker's optics went round and she smacked her friend on the shoulder. "Talk about inappropriate!" she snapped. "He's hurt and you're gonna tell him I'm..." they both halted mid-sentence as they realised was Prime watching them. "We gotta go." Jade grabbed Windstriker by the arm and yanked. She followed and the two transformed and flew away.

after a long minute of silence, Windstriker hissed "Why did you tell him that!?"

"What, he had to find out sometime? besides, he'll probably think differently about us now. He knows you like him, and maybe it'll help him realise we're not his enemies." Jade replied.

"But the Kintari ARE the Autobots's enemies." Windstriker retorted. "It's just gonna confuse them now." they circled again. Apparently, the other memebers of their team had regouped farther out. windstriker sighed and landed, giving Jade a warning glare to stay in the air. So she just transformed and hovered not too far away. Ratchet glanced up and Wheeljack aimed his gun at her. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what she said. She said it all wrong..."

Windstriker landed and glanced at Jade as though saying "Help me out here!" Jade shrugged, still hovering. Prime looked at Jade then back at Windstriker. "I didn't get the chance to thank you for saving my life. Twice. So... thank you." Ratchet and Wheeljack exchanged a suprised glance.

Windstriker grinned. "Well, uhmm... uh, " she was at a loss for words. "It's.. It was nothing."

Jade glanced over her shoulder. 'Windy, we gotta go." She took off. Windstriker's head snapped up and she instantly took to the air. The purple a-10 thunderbolt banked and followed Jade back to their group. "What was all that about?" Ratchet asked. Prime just shook his head. "I have no idea." he watched them leave. "Would you happen to know what a fan-girl is?"

- EndNotes: 1. Look out, TC, Skywarp's nesting! LOL

2. Prime's been fangirl'd! haha!

3. Yeah, I think Starscream got a bit fangirl'd too. XD. Shut up. LOL.

4. Remember to review! I get discouraged if I don't get reviews!


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